


A Glitch in the Matrix is Still Worthy of Love

by peteor



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Relationships, Developing Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-20 16:02:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13150104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peteor/pseuds/peteor
Summary: Church’s very existence is like a glitch in the fucking matrix.Donut, meanwhile, has always been the odd one out. He doesn’t frown when Grif and Simmons are too lost in themselves to pay attention to him. He doesn’t hate himself or get moody and upset when he gets lost in a conversation and winds up making no sense. He just shrugs, moves on, and continues to welcome everyone who comes within five feet of him with a smile and open arms.Church has made it a regular hobby to come within five feet of him.--the fic where two black sheep bond and maybe kiss a little(RvB Secret Santa Submission 2017)





	A Glitch in the Matrix is Still Worthy of Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Palomo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Palomo/gifts).



> @gdipalomo on tumblr asked for churchnut fluff and church angst and church as the main character, so i hope i hit all those bases. also, not really a retirement AU, but i wasn't sure what else to do for that prompt, so! i really hope you like this! :)
> 
> disclaimer: haven't written anything in a while (especially not churchnut), so things might be a little OOC

The first time Church was revived by his friends who have trouble letting shit go (and that’s coming from _him_ ), he was pretty pissed. Mostly because, back then, he was very ready to die. He wouldn’t say he was _suicidal_ , but it wasn’t like he had anything to live for.

He “forgot” the only thing he had, after all.

The _second_ time he was revived by his friends who have trouble letting shit go, he was more confused than anything. He was pretty fuckin’ sure the entire ‘Bring Down Charon’ plan hinged on his inevitable demise, and yet there he was, opening his eyes and finding himself strapped to a table.

_Physically_ strapped to a table.

Felt weird having a body, again.

So weird that, for a while, it was all he could focus on. Was there a whole bunch of political shit to deal with? Probably. But while Carolina, Wash, Tucker, and the others were out signing papers and arguing with the UNSC, Church was sitting at an empty table, in front of a sandwich. Not eating the sandwich. Which was pretty out of character for him.

“I brought you company.”

Church looked up from the sandwich and saw Wash standing there, arms crossed, beside… Donut. Who gave Church a smile and a wave that had Church’s body whirring in his ears.

“Uh… hey Donut,” Church said.

Wash clapped Donut on the shoulder and said, “You two have fun.”

Then he walked away, leaving Church and Donut sitting there. Donut, for what it’s worth, went with it, sliding onto the bench across from Church. He propped his chin up in his hands, elbows on the table, and asked Church, “Are you gonna eat that?”

If anyone else had asked that, Church would think it was sarcastic, and he would come back with a sarcastic comment in return. And hell, it probably _was_ sarcastic with Donut, too, because he’s a snarky motherfucker when he wants to be, and god damn Church, because he finds that more amusing than anything.

So instead of getting snappy—he could never be snappy with Donut—he just chuckled under his breath and said, “No, Donut, I’m not going to eat it.”

“Okie Dokie,” Donut said cheerfully— _cheekily_ —as he grabbed the sandwich and took a bite.

And thus began an unlikely and wonderful friendship.

—

Church isn’t surprised, but he’s somewhat offended, that Tucker goes with Wash and not him when everyone pairs off into their retirement apartments. They’re together, after all, it would make sense they’d want to live together.

Though…

“Lavernius Tucker, if you leave _one more thing_ lying around-”

“Dude, it’s a _shirt_ , just chill out!”

“I _have_ been chilling out! The first few times I didn’t even say anything, but this is the _fifty seventh_ time!”

“The fact that you’re counting means you have not been chilling out at _all_ , Washington.”

…Yeah, Church isn’t touching that with a ten foot pole.

Grif and Simmons pair off ( _obviously_ ), Caboose and Sarge pair off, and the last pairs are Donut and Lopez, and Church and Carolina.

Carolina and Church’s situation is… complicated.

They’re friends. They’re best friends. They’re practically siblings. And _that’s_ the problem. Sharing a head with Carolina is, in ways, almost _better_ than sharing _space_ with Carolina.

First of all, Carolina is messy. Messier than Church thought she would be. She leaves things strewn about, she can’t keep track of anything, and when she loses something, she blames Church for taking it. So things get tense, fast. _Almost_ as tense as Tucker and Wash, who go from ignoring each other to arguing with each other in a heartbeat, and then they go back again.

Church would say he doesn’t understand the appeal of a relationship like that, but if he did, he would be a fucking hypocrite. Nowadays, though, that statement is true. He doesn’t understand.

He’s an AI fragment living on borrowed time, and at this point, he’s too tired to fight. He’s too tired to deal with Carolina and her chaos.

Call it sappy, call it naive, but all he wants is someone to hold at night. He wants someone to kiss, cuddle, laugh with, hold hands with, comfort and be comforted by. He wants someone to love.

He wants…

“Hey, Church.”

Church almost doesn’t recognize Donut’s voice without the little lilt to his tone. He looks up and sees Donut walk in, a box tucked under his arm, wearing a red polo shirt, pajama pants, bunny slippers, and looking as tired as Church feels. So Church moves over on the couch and lets Donut sit beside him.

They’re in the band room, sitting across from Caboose’s drum-set and the others’ guitars. Donut puts his little box on his lap, and Church sees some candles and a little bag of cookies. He raises an eyebrow and catches Donut’s eye, smirking slightly.

“Whatcha got there?”

Donut pouts and holds the box out for Church. “Well… I made cookies for everyone, and thought maybe you and I could light some candles and have an indoor picnic! Since everyone else said no. But then I remembered you can’t eat, and you probably can’t smell, either.”

Church takes the box and looks down at the contents. “We could still do it.”

Donut perks up a bit. “Would it be fun for you?”

“Sure,” Church shrugs, smiling at Donut. “Better than sitting around alone feeling sorry for myself.”

—

“Why do you feel sorry for yourself?”

They’re sitting out by the lake-pond-thing, a ways away from Carolina and Grif, who are lounging by the rocks. Church has been tracing his finger through the sand, drawing patterns absentmindedly, for a while now. Donut looks over his shoulder and sees them.

The symbols.

Donut asks, “Are those the signs for the other AI?”

Church nods. “I don’t really feel sorry for myself. I feel sorry for them. I got to live, but for some reason, they didn’t.”

“Well, maybe they were gone,” Donut replies, resting his head on Church’s shoulder. Church glances down at him for a moment, feeling that whirring in his ears again, before looking back down at the sand. “Isn’t that something you Blues always say? You’re not really gone as long as someone remembers you? We all remembered you, but none of us really knew them. So… they were gone.”

“Memory is the key,” Church says under his breath. His fingers curl into fists, and he sweeps them across the sand, erasing all the symbols he’d been doodling. “They deserve to be remembered.”

Church tenses up when Donut grabs his sand-covered fist in both his hands, running his impossibly smooth thumbs over Church’s synthetic skin.

“ _We_ can remember them,” Donut says, flashing Church a blindingly optimistic smile. “We all can.”

Church inhales and exhales through his teeth, then nods hard. “Yeah,” he croaks, feeling like crying, but he knows no tears will come. “Yeah, we can.”

—

Nobody's really handling retirement well. Church can’t say he is, either. But Donut is, and Donut helps.

“Donut helps.”

Not something Church ever imagined himself saying, but hey, he never imagined he’d be put into an android body and sent out to a moon with the teammates he sacrificed himself for, and he _certainly_ never imagined meeting dinosaurs on said moon, so he’s going to let that one go.

He didn’t imagine Wash growing a beard, either.

“It looks weird,” Church mumbles to Donut as they eat together, isolated at the far corner of the large dining room. “He looks different.”

“Mmm,” Donut hums thoughtfully, shoveling some oatmeal into his mouth. “I don’t think it’s just the beard that makes him look different. Look at him.”

Donut’s right.

“Donut’s right.”

Church has really been underestimating Donut all these years, hasn’t he? Or maybe he hasn’t been, and Donut’s just changed. Gotten more mature, more serious, more observant. More war-weathered. Church isn’t sure how to feel about that.

Agent Washington has always been war-weathered. Church has memories of him as a soldier, a teenager, a _child_ , so he knows that statement is true. The amount of different battles he’s fought— _won_ —in his life cannot be counted on two hands, let alone one.

But there’s colour in his cheeks, now. There’s a smile on his face. His beard is somewhat scraggly and his hair has grown out so it curls around his ears. He’s got his arm around Tucker and, as Church stares, he relaxes into Tucker’s side and presses a kiss to his cheek. Tucker laughs, smiling wide, not as bright as he used to be—because Tucker’s now war-weathered, too—but still plenty bright enough.

Sparkling gold eyes meet Church’s, and Church almost doesn’t recognize them, despite seeing an entire lifetime through them years ago. Because they’re not dim, they’re not dull, there aren’t impossibly large dark circles around them, and they aren’t clouded with pain and piled-up hurt. They aren’t haunted, anymore.

After a moment, Wash smiles at Church, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

Church stands up and leaves the room.

Donut follows.

Church can’t remember the last time he left a room and someone followed him.

Donut links arms with Church, which has Church whirring again, flustered. Then Donut starts going on about one thing or another. Gossiping about Grif and Simmons, talking about how his baking lessons with Caboose are going, suggesting ideas for the waterpark.

Church knows each pause, each sentence that trails off and ends in a moment of silence, is Donut’s attempt to get Church in on the conversation. But Church doesn’t feel like talking.

Eventually, Donut drops Church’s arm and goes quiet, and Church feels something in his chest grow cold.

—

Church isn’t an idiot. He knows that the only reason he and Donut are hanging out is because they’re the odd ones out.

Church has never been the odd one out, before. He has to admit to himself, eventually, that he’s not handling it well. He’s jealous of Tucker and Wash. Both of them. Wash for taking his best friend—as if Church didn’t push him away—and Tucker for taking his… Washington.

It’s complicated.

Church tries not to think about it.

He’s jealous of Carolina for adapting so well to the Reds and Blues— _his_ friends—when he can’t even have a conversation with one of them without feeling out-of-place somehow.

It’s his fault, so he can’t be angry at her. He’s too tired to be angry. Hell, he’s even too tired to be jealous. He’s just resigned, at this point. Resigned to being the odd one out, the one that doesn’t fit in, the one that can barely function in the world anymore, probably because the universe didn’t plan on having him around, and has had to struggle to make room.

Church’s very existence is like a glitch in the fucking matrix.

Donut, meanwhile, has always been the odd one out. He doesn’t frown when Grif and Simmons are too lost in themselves to pay attention to him. He doesn’t hate himself or get moody and upset when he gets lost in a conversation and winds up making no sense. He just shrugs, moves on, and continues to welcome everyone who comes within five feet of him with a smile and open arms.

Church has made it a regular hobby to come within five feet of him.

—

Church can tell, right after it happens, that their first kiss isn’t going to be a fond memory to look back on.

Church is lost, emotional, desperate to feel human, to feel like he belongs, and Donut’s there, sitting beside him like always, with a wide smile and impossibly soft hands and an optimistic attitude and an almost unnerving amount of kindness, causing that whirring in Church’s ears.

So before Church can even process what he’s doing, he’s pressing his lips to Donut’s.

Then, once Church processes what he’s doing, he pulls back so hard he almost falls off the couch. His entire body is trembling, as he stares at Donut and realizes that he’s probably just fucked up the one good thing he had—the one thing he had to live for. _Again_.

Donut’s face is bright red as he lightly holds a hand up to his lips. His eyes are wide, but there seems to be a bitten-back smile making its way onto his face. Then he looks up at Church and says, “Your lips are warm.”

Church blinks. “Uh, what.”

“Well, I expected them to be cold,” Donut hurriedly explains. “Because you’re an android, and everything. But they’re very warm! Softer than I thought they’d be, too.”

“O…kay?” Church says, unsure, still tense as hell.

Donut rolls his eyes and shuffles towards Church, taking his hands. He leans forward and presses a kiss to Church’s cheek, then pulls back with a smile. “You’re not doing well, are you, Church?”

“…No, not really,” Church mumbles, staring down at his lap. “Look, I’ll just leave you alone. I’m probably going to die soon, anyway, or go rampant, or whatever. Don’t want to bring anyone down with me.”

When, after a long moment of silence, Church hesitantly looks up, Donut looks like someone just slapped him in the face.

“No one deserves to die alone,” Donut says sternly. “And no one deserves to _live_ alone, either. So I’ll be with you every step of the way, even if the others can’t be!”

Church raises an eyebrow. “ _Every_ step of the way?”

Donut huffs. “I know I’m not your first choice, but it looks like you’re stuck with me. So you’re just going to have to deal with it.”

“I don’t know if-”

“No ‘but’s, mister!”

“I didn’t _say_ ‘but-’”

“Come on,” Donut says, standing up and pulling Church up as well, their hands clasped together. “I think this conversation is going to take a lot of work, and a lot of work means a lot of baking. You in?”

“I don’t know how to bake.”

Donut winks. “You’ll learn.”


End file.
